California Gun Owners Pushing For Open Carry Of Firearms In State

The Gun Owners of California (GOC), a gun rights organization, is renewing its push for open carry of firearms in the state.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the push comes four years after a group of gun owners in Northern California pushed for open carry of “unloaded handguns,” and two years since the state legislature passed a law banning open carry “except for rural counties where a gun owner obtains law enforcement permission.”

But now that the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled twice in favor of gun rights regarding concealed carry–once on February 13th and again on March 5th–GOC’s Sam Paredes believes the time is right to pursue open carry again.

Paredes is quoted by the Chronicle: “That’s the nest logical step in the evolution of gun rights in California.”

He described the earlier pushes for open carry in the northern part of the state as “gun flaunting gatherings.” These were gatherings where people carried holstered, unloaded handguns into establishments and it made people nervous.

Parades said that is not the tactic GOC will use. Rather, it will fight for open carry via “the courts.”

Cody Jacobs, with San Francisco’s Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, criticized GOC’s tactics, telling the Chronicle: “The gun lobby can’t win this fight through the democratic process, so they are trying to overturn the will of the people through the court.”